


Little Things You Do Together

by memymo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Because Moftiss is trash and I want to sue, Domestic, FUCK THE FINAL PROBLEM, Family, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, I WANT TO SUE SEASON 4, I'm a thirsty ass bitch and I wrote this at work today, Ignore season 4 because WHAT A MESS, Just two boys being happy and living together and raising a kid, M/M, Post-TFP, fuck season 4, i can't deal with this show anymore what the fuck, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9358286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memymo/pseuds/memymo
Summary: And John thought to himself, "This is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life".





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Eric, who I called immediately after watching the finale (which I stupidly paid to go to).
> 
> Season 4 was a mess and I just - how could you write such a terrible episode. But since I'm a mess too I had fun watching it and now I had fun ignoring it completely in favour of my boys being happy.
> 
> The title is from Stephen Sondheim's musical Company.

_There was something you need to know._

John Watson was a man who was used to miss opportunities.

A long time ago, he had wondered. Before Irene, before the Fall, before Mary – before they were thrust into the spotlight and became something else. Back at the beginning, under the soft candlelight of Angelo’s, Sherlock’s faint blush and his hesitant smile, too wide. Always too wide.

They went back, as they do. Soldiers, he had said in that darkened hell, clasping Sherlock’s hand and suddenly aware of how warm it is. They went back to the rubbles of 221B Baker Street, pick up the pieces and dust off the mantelpiece. Back to Mrs Hudson’s lukewarm tea and strawberry jams, to clients and works and things that seemed so mundane after everything.

But things changed in little ways. It was like the ice has been thawed, and spring arrived once more.

John wasn’t sure why he still keep the house when he was barely there. The ghost of Mary hung about in every corner – the bookmark she left in the recipe book; the last of her perfume clinging on stubbornly to the bedsheet; her silk bathrobe hanging limply behind the door, undisturbed. It didn’t feel right, being there, somewhere familiar and yet foreign. It reminded of the lie that he had led, and the life that would never be. An unfulfilled promise.

As Baker Street was being rebuilt, John found himself gravitating towards it. One never quite learn, he would muse, in the quiet hours when Rosie was asleep and the other trouble of his life was preoccupied with another bizarre experiment. And god knows Sherlock needed someone there with him, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Sherlock was many things ( _best friend, genius, prick, trouble, bastard, godfather, a great man, a good man_ ) but he was hopeless when it came to anything that did not involve solving puzzles or crime. So John picked out the wallpaper and the furniture, and Sherlock shot the wall.

Rosie’s time was divided between himself, Mrs Hudson, Molly (on occasion when she wasn’t too busy), and Sherlock, who has an undeniable soft spot when it comes to his goddaughter. For her, Sherlock was something of a wonder, her blue eyes wide with curiosity and mouth gaping as she would listen to whatever Sherlock had decided he would tell her that day.

Without him even noticing it (“Do you ever notice _anything_ at all, John?” Sherlock’s voice asked, mockingly), his old room became Rosie’s room, her soft yellow cot fit in perfectly with the brocade baby blue wallpaper. He found himself spending most nights in Sherlock’s bed, because there wasn’t in couch insight, and Sherlock made it clear, in his own, stupid, terrible way, that John could not possibly even _think_ about sleeping on a fold-up mattress.

Sleep had never come easier, as he listened to the other man’s tinkering away in the kitchen or playing the violin. It felt safe. Peaceful. Loved. The wall held off the monsters and the war; the screaming and smell of gunpowder, choking promises and unshed tears. It felt like coming home, in a way that he hasn't felt for years, the tiredness embedded itself to his bones.

Like the knives and the skull on the mantelpiece and the glass tubes in the kitchen, things fell in their place, one by one.

And like everything else in John Watson’s life, it started with an accident.

It was like watching a good, old-fashioned romantic novel slowly reeling in front of his eyes – the little dust particles in the bright sunlight, Sherlock’s soft breath, his straying curls and the way his lips tugged downwards into a frown in his sleep, hands twitching and brows furrowed. And in a moment caught between sleep and wakefulness, all John could think of was, _Sherlock should not look like that._ So he did that thing he does whenever Rosie was on the verge of another crying fit – he reached out and kiss Sherlock’s brows, feeling the way his eyelashes fluttered, those normally clear piercing eyes gazing up at him in confusion.

And John thought to himself, _This is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life._

When his memories had faded away because he knows they would, one day, he wanted to hold on to this moment, when Sherlock Holmes looked up to him with all the love in his eyes, and when he truly realised, he had never stopped loving Sherlock Holmes.

But it was them, and everyone knows they did not do things the easy way. Or the normal way.

They did not talk about it because there was nothing to talk about, but a deep understanding of what has transpired. Sherlock hated talking about the obvious things, while John hated talking about the necessary thing. Such was the equilibrium.

It was the little things they did together. Sherlock making toasts in the morning, sometimes (the only meal he seems capable of making); a hand-brush here, a small smile there; taking Rosie to Regent’s Park on mild, spring days to feed the ducks (John, mostly, as Sherlock complained about how the activity was clearly beneath Rosie’s intellectual so he decided they should study the ducks, instead of just feeding them. It did not end well, naturally); warm dinners that were full of laughter of friends and family; Sherlock falling asleep, his head on John’s lap, curling up like a little housecat, as they watched _Inspector Morse_ (John did; Sherlock just complained about it, again); family dinners at Christmas, holding hands under the table as Sherlock’s mum fussed over Rosie and how Mycroft was discreetly taking foods from Lestrade (Greg, his mind corrected himself)’s plate; soft kisses under the cover at night, the way Sherlock fell apart under his hands, all sinew and scars, and fitted so beautifully against him; waking up in the morning and feeling someone next to him, relaxed for the first time in years.

Late at night, as Sherlock had fell asleep for once and Rosie sleeping fitfully upstairs in her cot, John realised how this was what he was searching all along for, and he had missed it for so long.

(If he ever told Sherlock that, he would just say that was because John was an idiot, and he wouldd be right. But Sherlock was an idiot too. A self-sacrificing idiot.)

He thought of Mary, sometimes, and the lies they led. A part of him hated himself for never loving her enough because she was never enough. Was never Sherlock. In calmer moments, he remembered how happy they were, how they had laughed and kissed and made love. How her hair had shone, the first day he saw her in the twilight’s sky.

Sherlock’s hair did not shine; the curls bouncing on his head. They were Rosie’s favourite play thing, a fact Sherlock seemed to tolerate. They were John’s too.

(His eyes shine, though, with the thousands of constellations that neither of them could remember or cared to remember)

They didn’t talk about it, and people didn’t talk either. It became a thing that just was, like the rising of the sun or Sherlock’s ability to solve crimes. Because it is what it is.

(Of course, Mrs Hudson pulled him aside and warned him to treat Sherlock right, before hugging him and telling him didn’t she say this would happen the first day he moved in? Mycroft, of course, opted for the dramatic as always, even if he did not dress up as Lady Bracknell. The effects weren’t quite the same as the empty garage, but they still worked. Perhaps Lestrade has mellowed him somewhat. Sherlock thought it was ridiculous)

So they kissed, they held hands, and they made love. They took Rosie out on day trips and took care of her while she sick, worried out of their minds. They ran around London, as always. They solved crimes and they wrote blogs. They argued, shout and slam the door and shot the wall. They walked away, only to come back, murmuring reassurances and kisses onto each other’s skin, etching down promises.

Because they were them. No matter what happened, it would always be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, the detective and his blogger. Friends. Lovers. Partners.

_Family._

John Watson was a man who has missed many things in life, but he was determined not to miss out on a lifetime of memories with Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
